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THE LITERATURE OF THE BEAT GENERATION:
A STUDY IN ATTITUDES
A THESIS
BY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
AUGUST 1959
v/
PREFACE
people who inhabit its hills and vales are its life, its soul, its spirit."
attitudes and values that are revealed through literature have their sig
The particular segment of our nation with which this thesis is con
cerned is the Beat Generation, which was labeled by this title as a result
and the foremost spokesman of the group. Kerouac states that the Beat
Generation has evolved "out of king kong and krazy kat and old american
whoopie," and out of the America that was "invested with wild self-
around the end of World War II, it emerged again near I9I4JU and took shape
1
Jack Kerouac, "Origins of the Beat Generation," Playboy, VI, No. 6
(June, 1959), 31. ~
2
Ibid., p. 32.
ii
around 19U8, when
...the hipsters or beatsters, were divided into cool and hot. Much
of the misunderstanding about hipsters and the Beat Generation in
general today derives from the fact that there are two distinct
styles of hipsterism: the cool today is your bearded laconic sage,
or schlerm, before a hardly touched beer in a beatnik dive, whose
girls say nothing and wear blackj the "hot" today is the crazy talk
ative shining eyed (often innocent and open-hearted) nut who runs
from bar to bar, pad to pad looking for everybody, shouting, restless,
lushy, trying to "make it" with the subterranean beatniks who ignore
him.1
eration, given by the foremost of the beatniks. But, there are more pro
the basic concepts upon which our nation was founded. These attitudes
mark a revolution in American manners. Because of the fact that the Beat
One general theme runs through this new literature - "that man has
which he can never grasp." The motivation of the literature is the urge
to find the true self, the naked self, the only self. Unlike its counter
part in England, the Angry Young Men, the Beat Generation has created a
Ibid., p. U2.
2
Gene Feldman and Max Gartenberg (eds.), The Beat Generation and The
Angry Young Men (New York, 1958), cover.
iii
possible, but the end rather than the means is of significance. This un
the mid-twentieth century, and may become the vantage point of a moral re
volution which will cause man to place less emphasis upon history and more
upon experience.
Beat Generation in order to determine the basic attitudes that are reflec
tions as: what societal factors account for the philosophic, religious,
political, and social attitudes of the Beat Generation? How are these
this literature in re basic attitudes and styles? How successful are the
in writing this thesis was Lawrence LLpton's The Holy Barbarians, a book
which presents the complete story of the beatniks. This book is recom
the Generation. In the line of novels, those most highly recommended are
supervision this thesis was written. On February 17, 1959, the School of
book review of The Beat Generation and The Angry Young Men. It was his
ature.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE ii
Chapter
I. SOCIAL ATTITUDES 1
A. Distrust of politics 15
B. Anarchism 18
A. Primitivism 21
B. Existentialism 22
C. Zen Buddhism 25
CONCLUSION 38
BIBLIOGRAPHY l£
CHAPTER I
SOCIAL ATTITUDES
Berdan states in his Early Tudor Poetiy that "that which separates
life, the unwritten assumptions that, like axioms in geometry, are accep
ted without the need of proof."1 On the intra-national level, this belief
can be applied to account for the various religious, political, and social
groups that have been and are being formed over the years. Such certainly
accounts for the formation of the Beat Generation, for this group of young
men and women is bound together among themselves and is separated from our
other hand, this group is not separated from our mass culture in that those
This group of rebels with a cause known as the Beat Generation has
been identified in many instances with the Lost Generation of the 1920's,
there is a difference between the two groups. The Beat Generation, broadly
speaking, differs from the Lost Generation of the roaring twenties in that
1
John M. Berdan, Early Tudor Poetry (New York, 1931), p. 1.
2
it lacks the feeling of bereavement which made the exploits of the latter
this manner:
The Lost Generation had its origin in an America that had undergone
force for youth. The Beat Generation had its origin in an America that
great extent many pseudo-standards and beliefs. The Beats could be clas
unborn middle class that has lost its nerve, its sense of reality, its
creative strength, its belief in the future,"2 of a people who are grad
ually substituting "automation for participation, symbols for meaning."^
In such an atmosphere, perhaps the "beat" way of life is the only means of
1 ' ■ ■ ■
John Clellon Holmes, "This is the Beat Generation," New York Times
Magazine, November 16, 1953, p. 19. See also, Malcolm Cowley, Exile's
Return (New York, 1951), pp. 3-12. — """
2
Chandler Brossard, "The Dead Beat Generation," The Dude, XI, No. 1
(July, 1958), 7.
3
Ibid.
3
The term "beat" implies a "rawness of the nerve," rather than weari
emptied out—a group whose state of mind has been stripped of all essen
bottom of your personality looking up. The group differs from the juve
nile delinquent in that the former is actually "on a quest, and the spe
cific object of the quest is spiritual." Kerouac states that they are
digs everything. We're not Bohemian, remember. Beat means beatitude not
beat up. You feel this. You feel it in a beat in jazz—real cool jazz or
generation has sprung will account for and justify the basic attitudes
age such as ours—an age of atomic energy, an age of great scientific and
work, thus allowing for more leisure and relaxation—men find themselves
scientific and technological advances of the past decade, man has created
1
John Clellon Holmes, "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation,"
Esquire, XUX, No. 2 (February, 1958), 35.
2
Ibid.
h
the most pervasive fact in our history: "One must learn to breathe, eat,
which he lives. Amid this complex situation, young Americans are asking,
The Beat Generation has answered the final question in the affirmative,
anxiety; they see man in a constant search for meaning, regardless of the
Even though all generations may feel that theirs is the worst of all
possible worlds, Holmes feels that the Beat Generation probably has more
claim to the feeling than any that have come before it.
The historical climate that formed its attitudes was violent, and
it did as much violence to ideas as it did to the men who believed
them. One does not have to be consciously aware of such destruction
to feel it. Conventional notions of public and private morality have
been steadily atrophied in the last ten or fifteen years by the expo
sure of treason in government, corruption in labor and business, and
scandal among the mighty of Broadway and Hollywood. The political
faith which sometimes seems to justify slaughter have become steadily
less appealing as slaughter has reached proportions that stagger even
the mathematical mind.3
1 ' ■ ■ ■
Feldman and Gartenberg, og. cit», p. 9.
2
Ibid., p. 10.
3
John Clellon Holmes, "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation,» Esquire,
XLH, No. 2 (February, 1958), 36. "^
The Beat Generation is the first in history that has grown up with
man to feel that he is not the final yardstick of the human soul; with the
all questions. How does the individual fit into such a society? How is
chines which constantly deprive him the chance to make use of his manual
flicted by the results of his own creation? The inability of the Beat Gen
"the dark night of the individual soul."2 Living in the collective bad
conditions of the depression, the collective uprooting of a global war,
tive individuality.
The constant search for awareness of the "I" is made in terms of the pres
ent only. The past and future have lost their meaning—only the present
moment can be possessed, and only the present affords an opportunity for
meaningful participation.
Ibid.
2
Ibid.
3
Lawrence Lipton, The Holy Barbarians (New York, 1959), p. 27.
Not capable of the act of faith required by belief in tomorrow, the
Beat Man values relationships only as they tend to reveal the truth
of his present existence. ...All of his contacts are immediate and
intense. He has no future which rests on a connection with some
person or group. Therefore no other human being can be so important
to him outside of the moment, and his relationships with others take
on the form of a dialoque with a shifting dramatis personae, a dia
logue always carried on in the present.1
Any attempt at life in the present only has a tendency to lead one in
many directions, without any stabilizing force. This is seen in the mores
of the Beat Generation as reflected in most of the literature, for the aim
Kerouac, go] go! go! In On The Road, the characters are constantly racing
across the country without any purpose other than finding kicks.
Life, says the Beat Man, should be lived without thinking ahead more than
half an hour. "Now is the time. This is the only moment we have, now.
Right at this split second. Past, present and future all in one."^
Not only is there a rejection of the past and future, but also a re
jection of the mores of the Square, "anybody who has been conned by soci
that these standards are many times pseudo-standards makes the idea even
more abhorrent, so they decide to turn against "the narcotic tabocca haze
1 ' — ■
Feldman and Garteriberg, og. cit., p. 12.
2
Jack Kerouac, On The Road (New York, 1957), p. 22.
3
Lipton, og. cit., p. 110.
it
Brossard, op. cit., p. 8.
7
The Beats are above commonplace mores, feeling that the wider one's ex
search of the Square for security is to the beatnik absolute nonsense, for
"whatever will be will be." The credo of the generation is simple: "the
only way to come to terms with life on this planet careening to its doom
that makes for good living—but the Beat knows that this is naught but a
from the institutions which establish the patterns according to which men
live in a society. Podhoretz feels that this art is "a perfectly sensible
1
Feldman and Gartenberg, oj>. cit., pp. 11-12.
2
Ibid., p. 12.
8
and competitive in a world where the possibility for careers in the old
deviation from party line is treason} a party line, moreover, which lays
down the law not only of politics, but in the arts as well. Such an
belled against the standards and style of the educated American middle
class and they have claimed to be introducing a new vigor, based on the
language and experience of the mass of the people. The basis of this
suffering adolescent, the juvenile delinquent, and the hipster. The goal
have chosen.
Generation from the obnoxious rat race of the Square—from "the nerve-
shattering Stopl and Go! HurryJ and Go Slow! Step Lively! and Relax!"3
Rejection of the many luxuries that fill our markets is not difficult, for
1
Norman Podhoretz, "Where is the Beat Generation Going?" Esquire, L,
No. 6 (December, 1958), p. Uk&.
2
Lawrence Lipton, "The New Nonconformism," Nation (November 2, 1958),
p. 388.
3
Lipton, op. cit., p. 1U9.
9
economy geared to war production, a design, not for living, but for death.
Not desiring to have the least to do with the rat race, the Beat Youth
have refused to enter the labor force and have accepted a life of poverty
for which there is an art. This New Poverty is the disaffiliate's answer
poverty may be equated with sin, since prosperity is equated with virture,
the beatniks remind us of the fact that poverty has an honorable ancestry,
the goods offered by the Beat Generation are not valued at a high price in
our society (these goods consist mainly of literary works and paintings).
I
Lawrence Lipton, "The New Nonconformism," Nation (November 2, 1958),
p. 389.
10
the needy in such places. If, for any reason, a person has to move from
the section, he generally leaves all his belongings behind, and these be
come community property. Once he returns, he will find any pad open to
him, or he can live between several of his choosing. This is the tradi
tional hospitality of the poor, one of the traditions of the Square that
Bums. Japhy ftyder, a Dharma Bum, is endowed with a "tremendous and tender
turn.
Not only is there the idea of sharing the inaminate, but also the
ested in the Negro Mardou Fox, and seeks information concerning her from
his associates.
..."Do you know this girl, the dark one"—"Mardou?"—"That her name?
Who she go with?"—"Ho one in particular just now, this has been an
I
Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums (New York, 1958), p. 7f>.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., p. 76.
11
This attitude is in accord with the sexual promiscuity of the Beat Gener
ation, and has its basis in the religious and philosophic concepts of the
group.
2
The home has lost its significance among the beatniks. There is a
loss of respect or reverence that is customarily held by the child for his
reject marriages entirely, and to live with whomever and for any length of
time that is desired. Marriage is looked upon as a thing for the Squares.
Sex is regarded as the only holy thing in life, though there is little ap
There is a sense of war between the youth of the Beat Generation and
manner:
"Don't you know that across the table from you...^s a child/ who
looks on you as an enemy who is planning to kill him in the immediate
future in an extremely disagreeable way?"3
The Beat Generation sees the entire adult world as senseless, hypocritical,
2
See Anatole Broyard, "Sunday Dinner in Brooklyn," Feldman and
Garteriberg, og. cit., pp. 21-33•
This attitude is in accord with the general attitude toward the Square.
The Beat Generation wants nothing that is binding, thus prohibiting the
"...although I have a hot feeling sexually and all that for her I
really don't want to get any further into her not only for these
reasons but finally, the big one, if I'm going to get involved with
a girl now I want to be permanent like permanent and serious and
long termed and I can't do that with 'k
In relation to the bulk of the literature, this idea cannot be considered
as typical. The Beat characters always tend to reject home life completely,
and when this cannot be done they tend to divide their time equally between
their homes and their beat pads. This act is most prevalent among those
who are not entirely beatniks—those who are gradually becoming converts.
The following dialogue which has been extracted from a magazine that
deals with Beat Generation material will serve to illustrate the general
I
Albert Zugsmith, The Beat Generation, (New York, 1959), p. 15•
2
James Stuart, "The Beat Generation," Scamp,{July, 1958), 66.
3
Zugsmith, op. cit., p. 23.
k
Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans (New York, 1958), p. 20.
13
"It's not good to sleep around," says a twenty year old girl who
shares a small apartment with a slightly older boy on New York's east
side. "But the way we live is healthy."
"Love, what's that? I know an idiot woman who says that it's a
sensation around the heart. She probably has indigestion and thinks
it's love. The only thing I know about love is this: You're sitting
in a room, any room, and you see a man. You look at one another and
there it is. You want one another. First it's pure passion and then
maybe you swing together. It has nothing to do with how much money
he's got or what kind of house you may live in or how many furs he
might buy you. It's pure and it's good."
"Then I'll have a baby. I'm not that different. And don't give
me that old routine about family protection. Ify parents are married
and I haven't had a single happy thought about one minute I spent with
them. I see nothing wrong with having a baby and I think I could
raise it as well as any simpering idiot in gingham who has an automat
ic washer and a twenty year mortgage."!
are bound together by no other bonds. Most members of the Beat Generation
The shock that older people feel at the sight of the Beat Generation
1
Stuart, op_. cit., pp. 66-68.
II*
titudes which motivate their actions. The adult world views this frantic
ternal pivot around which youth can group their observations and opinions.
in a state of dissolution.
1
John Clellon Holmes, "This is the Beat Generation," New York Times
Magazine, November 16, 1952, p. 20.
2
John Clellon Holmes, "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation,"
Esquire, XLIX, No. 2 (February, 1958), 38.
3
Nelson Algren, "Eggheads are Rolling," Nation'(October 17, 1953),
p. 307.
CHAPTER II
POLITICAL ATTITUDES
The Beat Generation, with its skeptical view of the Square in all
latter would cease to work and society would fall apart. Therefore, it
ices are a thing that has been kidnapped from the citizen in his organic
sort are not functions of the State, but rather normal functions of the
Because of this social lie, the Beat boys feel that all official
merchandise. What disgusts them so much is the fact that it works: people
constantly vote on things of which they have the least knowledge. The
that really matters, and perhaps this is just as well, since it is all lies.
2
Ibid., pp. 293-29U.
16
vote, for the Beats are contemptuous of all politicians, and their feeling
such thing as a political solution, for these acts are nothing but "elec
use the same tricks, thus effacing all choices. Democracy itself is a
big shuck, "the biggest shuck of all. The only equality there can be is
2
equality between equals."
The right to vote is not valued mainly because "it does not present
such vital issues as war and peace to the voter nor give him any voice
It only affords the most indirect and ineffective control over taxation.
the ballot, boss rule, back room deals, campaign contributions—all are
they are against the military services, and all industries that are
Ibid., P« 119.
Ibid.
Ibid»> P. 306.
h
Ibid., P» 307.
17
objector. They laugh at the Square's ability to conceal the killing part
because the ballot does not afford one any control over war, the Beats re
Any form of civil law is held in contempt by the Beat Generationj its
"They're against us. ...They want to let the air out of us."
This attitude motivates some of the beatniks to do all within their power
to violate the law just for kicks. But they may be justified in their at
titudes, for many times law enforcement officers perform their "duties" out
policeman may be fired if he does not make at least one arrest per month.^
It is a general tendency of policement to frighten men into obedience
and in turn to boost their own ego. They glory in the number of arrests
they make and in the amount of brutality that they can inflict upon the
victims.
1
Ibid., p.
2
Zugsmith, O£. cit., p. 126.
"You should have been here about two months ago when me and Sledge...
arrested a drunk in Barrick G. Boy, you should have seen the blood
fly. I'll take you over there tonight and show you the blood stains
on the wall. We had him bouncing from one wall to another. First
Sledge hit him, and then me, and then he subsided and went quietly."1
The general attitude held by the generation toward the civil law en
It is for reasons such as these that the Beat Generation is against law
hibit the beatnik in his search for "self," and hence this is taboo.
concern for the welfare of his fellow man, yet, not to the extent that
there is little effort to put it into practice. The Beat men want to love
everybody,
"Even the haters and the war-makers—on both sides of the iron
curtain. And maybe if /they/ can love enough, and put it into /their/
poems and paintings, maybe it'll spread out like. And if enough of
/them/ make it that way and it helped to transform a few people here
1
Ibid., p. 56.
2
Ibid., p. 113.
19
and a few people there, then somebody on this side is going to refuse
to make their fuckin bombs for them, and somebody on the other side
is going to refuse to fire their missies "•*■
of the attitude of the Beat Generation toward the American political sys
tem, toward
p
...the United States that coughs all night and won't let us sleep...
1
Lawrence Lipton, The Holy Barbarians (New York, 1959), p. 107.
2
Allen Ginsberg, "Howl," Quoted in Feldman and Gartenberg, ojo. cit.,
p. 173. See Supra, p. 32.
CHAPTER III
difficult for the church to provide the explanations that are needed in a
complex world such as we have in the twentieth century, and many times
filiation. This is not to imply that it does not believe in God, for
Kerouac has stated that the Beat Generation is basically a religious one
"No one can tell us that there is no God. We've passed through all
forms. ...Everything is fine, God exists, we know time...."2
1
John Clellon Holmes, "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation,"
Esquire, XLIX, No. 2 (February, 1S£8), 38.
2
Jack Kerouac, On The Road (New York, 1957), p. 99.
20
21
natural, not a supernatural, god; they are searching and waiting for God
o
to show them His face.
The beatniks have less concern for the organized church because
intimacy, sex, and let the rest of the world go by."^ This outlook on
life implies a certain primitivism—an unhibited effort to return to the
state of life in which man gets away from the complexities of society,
and lives according to the dictates of his conscious. The impulse under
than a cover for their way of life; it arises from a pathetic poverty of
"I
Idpton, The Holy Barbarians (New York, 1959), p. 60.
2
See "Far-Out Mssion," Time, June 29, 1959, pp. 38-1+0.
3
Norman Podhoretz, "Where is the Beat Generation Going?" Esquire, L,
No. 6 (December, 19$B), 144.
22
...Young men who can't think straight and so hate anyone who can;
young men who can't get outside the morass of self and so construct
definitions of feeling that exclude all human beings who manage to
live, even miserably, in a world of objects; young men who are burden
ed unto death with the specially poignant sexual anxiety that America
—in its eternal promise of erotic possibility—seems bent on breed
ing, and who therefore dream of the unattainable perfect orgasm, which
excuses all sexual failure in the real world.1
Such an attitude is justifiable, for before the 1950's mankind had been
forced to live with the suppressed knowledge that the most minute facet of
our personality, or the most minor projection of our ideas could mean that
ation. In an economic civilization based upon the belief that time can be
subjected to our will, our psyche was subjected to the unbearable anxiety
that death being causeless, life was causeless as well, and time deprived
2
of cause and effect had come to a stop.
experience where security is boredom and therefore sickness, and one exists
37"
Norman Podhoretz, "The Know-Nothing Bohemians," Partisan Review, XXV,
No. 2 (Spring, 1958), pp. 315-316.
2
Norman Mailer, "The White Negro," Feldman and Gartenberg, op. cit.,
P. 3li3.
3
Ibid., p. 3UU«
23
accepted the terms of death, divorced himself from society, chosen to live
without roots and to live entirely according to the dictates of self. Such
is the philosophy that must be accepted when one has lost faith in the
prior to essence. This philosophy is the answer to the cries of the Beat
Generation—cries that come from men and women who have lost something
that they once believed in—be it a crude and false faith or a genuine
faith,—of men and women who are living with no hope and without God, for
must be able to feel himself, to know his desires, rages and anguish. He
must be aware of the character of his frustration and know what will
"purpose."
The Beat Generation feels that a life based upon primitivism and ex
Closer to the secrets of that inner unconscious life which will nour
ish /axis/ if /he/ can hear it, for /Ke ±s/ then nearer to that God
which every hipster believes is located in the senses of his body,
that trapped, mutilated and none the less megalomaniacal God who is
It, who is energy, life, sex, force...; not the God of the churches
but the unachievable whisper of mystery within the sex, the paradise
of limitless energy and perception just beyond the next wave of the
next orgasm.3
This philosophy, which the Beat Generation feels will return us to the
1
Majorie Green, Dreadful Freedom: A Critique of Existentialism
(Chicago, 19U8), p. 2.
2
toiler, op_. pit., p. 31*6.
3
Ibid., p. 3J>6.
2k
being.
cuity, though it is to have a more profound basis than one would think.
To the Beat, sex is where philosophy begins. In Norman Mailer's The Deer
Park, God, the oldest of the philosophers, is endowed with these words,
"Rather think of Sex as Time, and Time as the connection of new circuits."
being hooked up. There are those among the beatniks who are equally en
Corydon, in which the author supports the thesis that "some over-endowed
men turn to other men after their women are exhausted—precisely out of
1
Sidney Alexander, "Not Even Good Pornography," Reporter, October 20,
1958, p. 1*8.
2
Bernard Wolfe, "Angry at What?" Nation, November 1, 19£8, p. 319.
3
Norman Podhoretz, "The Know-Nothing Bohemians," Partisan Review,
XXV, No. 2 (Spring, 1958), 309.
25
Generation. Through the use of alcohol and drugs, the members are able to
them.
The Negro has been accused of giving rise to the hipster or the ex
beatniks find the source of aH vitality and virtue in the simple and
rural types and in the dispossessed urban groups. These people are more
a state of fear, and as a result, he has to live only for the present.
Even today, the Beat Generation sees in him a trace of prindtivism, hence
factors that will aid him in his spiritual quest. "Zen is an ancient
belief that there is a hidden truth which lies deep within our conscious
ness. Zen aims to discover this truth through the process of meditation.
—1 ' ■
See Norman Mailer, "The White Negro," Feldman and Gartenberg, op.
cit., pp. 31*2-363.
2
"Zen: Beat and Square," Time, July 21, 1958, p. k9*
26
things. In contrast with conventional religion, Zen attains its goal with
out a concern for such matters as faith, God, grace, sin, salvation,
The Beat Generation finds in Zen Buddhism "a credo and a method for
Zen, allows for direct apprehension of truth. Tingesten states that the
following factors or Zen truths have induced the Beat Generation to throw
over its Western heritage and embrace this Oriental religion. First, Zen
is not concerned with morality, for it teaches the relativity of good and
placed upon the theory that no being can save another; that the understand
ence. Third, Zen believes neither in one God, nor in a multitude of gods
nothing phenomenal really exists but that everything is actually the void.
r~
Daniel Bronstein, "Search for Inner Truth," Saturday Review,
November 16, 19$7, pp. 22-23.
2
Peter Tingesten, "Beat and Buddhist," Christian Century. February 25,
1959, P. 226. — *
27
the eternal now. He who understands the present already lives in eternity.^
Many critics, however, feel that the Beat Generation does not really
Beat Zen has been called a "goofball," for it makes kicks possible for the
Ibid.
2
"Zen: Beat and Square," Time, July 21, 1958, p. U9.
3
Stephen Mahoney, "The Prevalence of Zen," Nation, November 1, 1958,
p. 313.
5
Zugsmith, og. cit., p. 56.
28
Such attempts at meditation, a practice of Zen Buddhism, are not made with
Zen Buddhists.
religious concepts which the Beat Generation has substituted for the or
thodox Christianity which they feel has been corrupted in twentieth century
they encourage the beatniks in their search for "self," and justify the
1 — ——
Read Kerouac's The Dharma Bums for a first hand account of the Beat
Generation and Zen Buddhism.
CHAPTER IV
AESTHETIC ATTITUDES
in that phase of music known as jazz. Though this new movement is some
duction of its authors. The chief function of any art is that of expres
sion, and the chief ends have been to instruct and delight. The Beat Gen
arouse some type of pleasant emotional response which makes for an assoc
iation between the audience and the work. It is only after transformation
has taken place that one can see that art may be therapeutic in nature.
submerged people who feel free...."2 Lipton states that jazz, to the
IApton, The Holy Barbarians (New York, 1959), p. 200.
2
John Clellon Holmes, "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation,"
Esquire, XLIX, No. 2 (February, 1958), 37,
29
30
something that the Square rejects, and in sex, the beatnik finds him to be
the Beat Generation, though not so difficult to see the part that jazz
as a solution to any social problem, for they are apolitical, but as a kind
against the "cultured" or "refined" music of the concert halls which are
2
Lipton, The Holy Barbarians (New York, 1959), p. 212.
3
Ibid., pp. 212-213.
31
music of such as the New York Symphony Orchestra, music that to them is
dead.
"joint" and smoke pot while "digging" jazz. To them, this constitutes the
and rebellious.
basic trend of American verse. The new group of young poets in San
Francisco feels that "only that which cries to be said, no matter how
'unpoetic' it may seem; only that which is unalterably true to the sayer,
and bursts out of him in a flood, finding its own form as it comes, is
worth the saying in the first place." This suggests that no regard should
artificial, for these concerns separate literature from life. This con
cept of poetry is much like that held by the Romantic poets of England and
whose most outstanding poem is "Howl." This is a poem that flings cusses
course, it is definitely "the fury of the soul injured lover or child, and
its dynamic lies in the way it spews up undigested the elementary need for
distortion."2
2
M. L. Eosenthal, "Poet of the New Violence," Nation, February 23,
1957, p. 162. ~~
32
This excerpt suggests the general nature of the subject matter and
This is a reflection of the total disgust that the Beat Generation feels
toward our twentieth century America. The complete poem is an extreme pro
Dan Jacobson feels that Ginsberg has rhythm and a feeling for the
value of words, but lacks the ability "to write a poem which can stand up
that his style shows a great influence of such poets as Whitman, Williams,
such poets as MaLlarrae, Baudelaire, Poe, Rimbaud, Yeats, Eliot, Pound and
many others. All of these poets were not poets who adhered to any stead
fast rules, but who remained true to the self. In all poetry, the Beats
strive to be frank, concise, reverent. They picture things as they are and
The prose of the Beat Generation is less highly developed than its
poetry. Kerouac, the best novelist in the genre, has published several
1 ' — ■ ■ ■—-
Dan Jacobson, "America's 'Angry Young Men,'" Commentary, XXIV
(December, 1957), 476.
2
Rosenthal, og. cit., p. 162
3
Jack Kerouac, "The Last Word," Escapade. Ill, No. 10 (June, 1959), 72.
3k
He feels that in writing, one should adhere to his thoughts, and to the
for craft, for it is merely "laborious and dreary lying," a "sheer block
age of the mental spontaneous process known 2,500 years ago as 'The Seven
Streams of Swiftness.1"
be different and new. This style is one that stems naturally from their
way of life - to which they strive to remain true. The Beats attempt al
and others. Most of the characters in the novels may be called "Forthright
Brutes," characters who are "bewitched boys, newly discovering verbs and
developed a new language which is quite unique. Norman Mailer has stated
fact that it allows one to say much without really saying anything. For
Ibid.
2
Herbert Gold, "The Mystery of Personality in the Novel," Partisan
Review, XXIV, No. 3 (Summer, 1957), 454.
3
Quoted in John Clellon Holmes, "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation,"
Esquire, XLIX, No. 2 (February, 1958), 37.
35
example, the terra "yes" covers a wider field than any dictionary. "With
Negro. These are a few of the many terms that constitute hip language.
ical basis for this new language. One sociologist of Temple University
"Life is not encased in one formula whereby everyone acts the same
or conforms to a particular pattern. No two persons act alike. We
are all made from the same mould, but in different patterns. Would
there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vo
cabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms? An author should be real in
2
Norman Podhoretz, "The Know-Nothing Bohemians," Partisan Review,
XXV, No. 2 (Spring, 1958), 308.
36
treating his subject and be allowed to express his thoughts and ideas
in his own words."•*■
This is also the attitude of the Beat Generation writers, and this they
have done. In light of this, authorities have agreed that for literature
2
danger of inciting to anti-social or immoral action.•"
The Beat Generation, besides improvising the literary genres that are
current on the literary scene of America, have created a new genre known
with its solo and ensemble passages and those of the instruments.
century America, and that a blending of poetry and jazz will return the
Among those of the Beat Generation who are interested in the arts,
its literature, these young people insist upon spontaniety in painting, and
those painters most respected by them are those who use an intuitive
I ' ———
2
"New Test For Obscenity," Nation, November 9, 1957, p. 311*.
3
Kenneth Rexroth, "Jazz Poetry," Nation, March 29, 1958, p. 382.
k
Lipton, The Ho3y Barbarians (New Tork, 1959), p. 222.
37
approach in their work. Such painters as Mark Tobey, Clayton Price, Rice
Lebrum, Ben Shaw, and Robert Motherwell have had tremendous influence upon
In literature and painting, then, the Beat men and women desire to be
freed from steadfast rules, and to rely upon the dictates of the conscious.
They seek to express their inner feelings in the terms which present them,
for only then is art related to life. This inner freedom is found in jazz,
and it is for this reason that the generation caters to this phase of the
sophic, and the aesthetic attitudes of the Beat Generation, one is inclin
ed to feel that the beatniks of America are not as radical as has often
been the conclusion of many Squares. He is inclined to feel that the beat
way of life is the only way of life thus far that these young men and wo
characterizes our nation. This way of life, or the attitudes of the gen
standards and patterns. But those of the Beat Generation have realized
that this way of life is one that stifles complete maturation of individu
The image of the Beat Generation is found in the late James Dean, an
actor of the discipline known as The Method. The primary concern of this
Dean, like the Beats, was always "on the road" in search of something—
Generally there are valid reasons for one to reject the mores of our
1 ■ —
John Clellon Holmes, "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation,"
Esquire, XLIX, No. 2 (February, 19£8), 37. .
38
39
nation and to accept those of the Beat Generation. Is not there evidence
values. Nor can this generation be blamed for rejecting the past and
basis for their lives. How is one to live when he is in a state of con
organized church is justifiable also, for even the Square must admit that
the church, as a whole, is losing its potency, and has failed to cope ad
Generation toward the family, for this institution has always served as a
"training ground" for young people. The loss of respect for the family
as we have known it, how can one learn to adapt to life in a society-at-
large? This has reference to the off-spring of the group, for, doubtedly,
of our nation as a whole. If this is true, how will the off-spring of the
The problems that the Beat Generation presents are not as simple as
Dan Wakefield suggests when he states that "...there are born each year a
our national history there come a few poets and a few boys wandering with
words. ..." The members of the Beat Generation are not necessarily boys
because they have chosen a way of life that differs drastically from the
expected. These young men and women are human beings whom the nation has
failed to help adjust to or find their places in our society. And this
The problems are more serious when we realize that not only is there
are similar groups of young people who are growing up with a new social
This indicates the depth of sincerity that these beatniks hold in their
ideas and ideals. The guardians of our civilization must take an active
1
Quoted in Stuart James, "The Beat Generation," Scamp, (July, 1958),
p. 68.
2
Norman Podhoretz, "Where is the Beat Generation Going?" Esquire, L,
No. 6 (December, 1958), 150,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Cowley, Malcolm. Exile's Return. New York: The Viking Press, 1951.
Feldman, Gene and Garteriberg, Max (eds.). The Beat Generation and The
Angry Young Men. New York: The Citadel Press, 1958.
Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. New York: The Viking Press, 1958.
IApton, Lawrence. The Holy Barbarians. New York: Julian Messner, Inc.,
1959. "~~"
Zugsmith, Albert. The Beat Generation. New York: Bantam Books, 1959.
Articles
111
1*2
"The Blazing and the Beat," Time, February 2U, 1958,
Brossard, Chandler. "The Dead Beat Generation," Dude, II, No. 6 (July,
1958), 6-9.
Gold, Herbert. "Hip, Cool, Beat—and Frantic," Nation, November 16, 1957,
3U9-355.
Kerouac, Jack. "The Last Word," Escapade, III, No. 10 (June, 1959), 72.